AFST306 - LAW, CULTURAL MEANING, AND POWER

Some have argued that we are living in an age in which the political is increasingly being displaced into the realm of the legal, yet etnographic fieldwork has shown that we have entered a period in which people are increasingly using political strategies to make legal claims. The "rule of law" has developed tremendous moral force in international politics and legal language is becoming a key resource in daily life. The relationship between law and politics is becoming all the more critical in the contemporary period. By asking how relationships between legal, cultural and political realms are structured, we will study changing approaches to law in anthropological work. The course will examine how law provides tools for both social struggle and social control and will explore classical and contemporary texts in legal and political anthropology in order to detail the cultural dimensions of law and law's changing relationship to discipline.